Seaweed the latest Wimmera crop

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Seaweed is being grown more than 300 kilometres from the sea, deep in the Wimmera in trials using natural water saltier than the ocean.

Part of a program run by the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority, the trials aim to use salinity to advantage.

Bernie Dunn, the authority's land and biodiversity program manager, said the project developed from looking at ways of living with salinity and reclaiming areas where it could not be reversed. "It's about trying to turn an eyesore and what most people view as a negative, in terms of saline water and saline land, into a positive in terms of trying to produce something," he said.

A generation ago a 50-hectare melaleuca marsh on Rob and Sally Kruger's Jeparit grain and sheep farm turned saline. In the early 1980s Mr Kruger planted the area with salt-resistant grass, but by the late 1990s, with salt continuing to spread, he began pumping saline water out of the ground and into evaporation pools, trying to lower the watertable and reduce salinity.

Word got around and last year he was asked to participate in trials that the management authority and Department of Primary Industries hope will show how seaweed can be grown for commercial use inland on salt-affected land. Mr Dunn said a range of aquaculture options had been considered, including breeding fish, but seaweed was considered best for the area.

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Bream and oysters were already being bred inland in South Australia on salt-affected land and Mr Dunn said they wanted to try something new.

The seaweed trialled could be used as a thickener, in paint, toothpaste or pet food. First attempts at growing it last year began promisingly, but soured when the water became affected by iron, killing the crop - something those involved are working on to remedy.

The trials will be reviewed this time next year. If all goes well, commercial crops could be grown in two to three years.